Posted: 09th Mar, 2011 By: MarkJ


A UK community network specialist in
fibre optic broadband services, Fibrestream ( NextGenUs ), looks set to develop and deploy a new 100Mbps capable
Fibre-to-the-Home ( FTTH ) broadband ISP network in the
Eden Valley village of
Great Salkeld (
Cumbria).
The small
small civil parish village, which resides just north of
Penrith, last week met to discuss the villages woefully weak internet access. It's understood that over 50 people attended the meeting and
all bar one voted in favour of the NextGenUs solution.
NextGenUs's / Fibrestream's founder, Guy Jarvis, commented:
"A convergence between representative democracy and community interest is coming. Whether that coming together is bumpy or smooth, there is a golden opportunity that any informed observer will recognise and every informed recipient must have the right to choose.
The choice available today was last available a century ago as copper wire telephony emerged in the UK. Once first mile FttH networks are built once, there is no business case for building a subsequent alternative infrastructure."
It's still early days for Great Salkeld and it could take a little while longer before the network can be built; assuming all goes well. The project would deploy a privately funded and community owned network, one that is partly
built by the community and
does not require any taxpayers money.
Fibrestream have already successfully completed several similar projects, such as their well documented work in the isolated rural village of
Ashby de la Launde in the North Kesteven district of
Lincolnshire (
here).